Q: Did Steve Winwood sell the rights to "Bring Me a Higher Love" to the National Restaurant Association?

A: If you want to know whether a restaurant keeps its kitchen up to health code, they say you should check the restrooms. If a place bothers to clean its toilets on a regular basis, you probably won't get salmonella, or so the story goes.

Bring me a bloomin' onion, whoa oh.

I'd like to introduce a new rule for instamatic food-service evaluation: If you want to know whether your meal will be poisoned, check to see if Steve Winwood's "Bring Me a Higher Love" is playing.

The easy way to remember this rule is that "Bring Me a Higher Love" is the worst song of all time, and any establishment that allows it to be pumped in actively hates its patrons.

According to a recent Pew study, 65% of family restaurants in the Midwest are playing "Bring Me a Higher Love" right this second.

Q: Who brings you the buzz, and also the white powder?

A: T.A.M.S.Y. does, obvs. As now confirmed by something called BuzzFeed, which notes that I am totally among the finest sources for news about psychic pets. SUCK IT, MONKEYFILTER.COM!

On a heavily, deadlier note, today is the wrong day to be making jokes about anthrax, as ABC News HQ have been rocked — ROCKED I TELL YOU — by the discovery of a suspicious white powder that will almost certainly turn out to be powdered sugar or cocaine.

WAIT OMG BREAKING: I didn't have time to finish making fun of this story before the powder was revealed to be aspirin. [via Wonkette]

But please, ABC News staff, don't let that stop you from being terrified/going home early. I'm sure that Osama bin Laden, who is totally alive and not dead, is hiding in your janitor's closet just waiting to unleash the Ice-9.

RELATED: I recently found a suspicious blue, purple and pink powder in my sock drawer, but after calling the bomb squad, National Guard, Citibank's Identity Theft hotline, and Burger King kids' club, it turned out just to be Fun Dip. Delicious Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip!

I'm eating it right now, in fact, and it's unusually tasty, now that I know it's not deadly. Probably the best Fun Dip ever. The flavors are, let's see, RazzApple Magic, Grape-Yumptious, and...wait...OH GOD NOOOOOOO!!!


That darned Qaeda!

EARLIER: Socialized anthrax will kill us all.

Q: Are you happy now, Consumerist?

A: Faced with dwindling international confidence in its occasionally poisonous exports, China erred on the side of caution and executed the former chief of its food and drug administration. PUBLIC RELATIONS CRISIS = AVERTED! HURRAY!

Of course, if the president prime minister shadowy cabal that runs China had really wanted to impress the West, they would have handled this the American way: by commending the FDA chief for his magnificent work, and then promoting him.

Q: How good are Krispy Kreme donuts?

A: So good, you'll... well, just ask the news team at NBC Augusta.



As Ohio's own Livin' in Cowtown notes, "This is what happens when you hire idiots that get their on-air graphics from a Google Search without even looking at the results." [story via Scotty Jay, who does not have a Web site]

UPDATE: Unshockingly, NBC Augusta is none too happy about the hubbub surrounding this clip. As you can see, YouTube took it down.

Also unshockingly, the Internet is smarter than NBC Augusta. But I guess you already knew that.



As far as I can tell, the network doesn't really have a leg to stand on here, legally. See: Fair use under United States law. Airing ten seconds of a thirty-minute news program does not copyright infringement make. -- 3/4/07, 12:48AM

Q: Why is Chief Wahoo smiling wider than ever?

A: Because ownership of the Hard Rock Cafe has been transferred to American hands -- Native American hands -- as Britain's Rank Group announced today it will sell the international restaurant & casino chain to the Seminole tribe of Florida in a deal worth nearly a billion dollars.

The deal apparently doesn't include the hugely valuable Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, which Cafe co-founder Peter Morton sold earlier this year to Morgans Hotel Group for $770 million (the land occupied by the hotel's pool is valued at $50 million alone, says Wikipedia). That package also included exclusive rights to the Hard Rock Hotel brand in the western half of the US.

In any event, one London analyst called the price of the Seminole deal "slightly disappointing." T.A.M.S.Y. knows nothing about the value of such things, but we hope that analyst is correct, because we're always supportive of Indians finding new ways to rape back the colonists.

We're not sure what to think, though, of the rumored changes the Seminoles plan to institute in Hard Rock Cafes worldwide...

RUMORED NEW POLICIES AT THE
FLORIDA SEMINOLES' HARD ROCK CAFES

• Overpriced beverages now referred to as "Seminole fluids."
• Line chefs getting high on break now required to smoke from peace pipe.
• Crazy Horse to receive lifetime supply of curly fries with purchase of full-price meal; Neil Young still required to pay for curly fries.
• Ticket booths outside of all Hard Rock Live! events now uniformly considered scalpers.
• Axl Rose's feathered hair now to contain actual feathers.
  
• Caucasians explicitly banned.
• Appetizers, entrees no longer designed to taste like shit.
• Reservations required.

Aside from all that, T.A.M.S.Y. offers kudos to the Florida Seminoles for proving that it really is a long way to the top if you want to rock & roll.

Susanna & the Magical Orchestra - It's a Long Way to the Top [mp3]

Melody Mountain, 2006

For what it's worth, that album is totally excellent. I've already made a spot for it near the top of my forthcoming best of 2006 list.